effectivelywildfandomcom-20200215-history
Episode 527: The Roster Expansion Email Show
Date September 3, 2014 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about expanded rosters, waiver claims, hidden perfect games, and more. Topics * Impact of expanded rosters * Waiver claim system * Hidden perfect games * Controlling the running game * Advantage from 'bad' stats Intro Sloan, "The Answer Was You" Outro Episode outtake sound clip Banter Ryan Webb was called up to the Orioles from AAA affiliate Norfolk. While in AAA he finished three games without earning save. Email Questions * Eric: "Isn't the fact that teams can call-up players, resulting in uneven rosters, ostensibly when games are most important, kind of odd?" * Coleman (Southampton, UK): "In accordance with my least favorite annual tradition the Blue Jays, my team of choice, find themselves with only a theoretical hope of a playoff birth at the beginning of September, 5 1/2 games back of the second wild card. My question is whether the expanded rosters make it more or less likely for such a large gap to be overcome. Presumably it would take a month of playing well above their true talent while the teams they trail, in this case the Tigers, Mariners, Indians, and Yankees, would play below theirs. I assume this kind of outlier month becomes more likely as roster sizes decrease, as then team performance is more easily impacted by a few players having great/terrible months. Is it therefore arguable that expanding the rosters on September 1st is actually bad for the most exciting kind of pennant race? The Red Sox or Braves collapses from a few years ago for example. Might we see more of these if rosters were kept at their normal size in September?" * Mike (St. Louis, MO): "What is the point of putting a player like Matt Latos on revokable waivers when there is no way that a team is going to trade them? Why subject the player to the thought that they could still be traded in the next few days?" * Russ: "Yusmeiro Petit just set the record for batters retired in a row (46) and then proceeded to give up a double. A long time ago you discussed which you thought is more impressive, a real perfect game or a hidden perfect game from a reliever. Is there a way to use Play Index to find out how many times a hidden perfect has taken place? I'd also be interested to know whether it's happened more or fewer times than a real perfect game." * Steve: "Is it ever good to be the best at something bad? I learned a little bit about hockey stats this year and was surprised to find that good teams often lead the league in giveaways. It's a proxy for possessions since you can't give the puck away if you don't have it in the first place. As far as applying the information it's probably better to use time of possession but it's interesting to think that it could be good to lead the league in something bad. Does this work for baseball? Does this year's GIDP champion team earn the crown because they have the best OBP? This is obviously not something to strive for but maybe interesting in retrospect." Play Index * Who is the best pitcher at controlling the running game? * Yordano Ventura has not had a stolen base attempted on him in 167 career innings. This is a record, the next closest streak is 120 innings. * Dave Johnson went 259 career innings before allowing a successful stolen base. Notes * Sam thinks that it is strange the rules effectively change in September (with regard to roster size), but would still keep the expanded rosters. However he would only allow 25 to be active for every game. Ben likes that it allows some players to get MLB experience who might otherwise not. * Many teams channel players through waivers to make them eligible to trade later during the season, Sam thinks many things with the waiver system are governed by teams adhering to unwritten rules. * From 1972 to 2003 there were 62 hidden perfect games, including three players with multiples. * Ben and Sam previously discussed hidden perfect games in Episode 262. * The team with more men left on base wins 56% of the time. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 527: The Roster Expansion Email Show Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes